[1.3.1] Herald of the Storm (Elemental Crit Glacial Hammer) SC Build

Glacial Hammer doesn't seem to get any love, so when I found this staff, I set about trying to change that!



The idea of the build was to use Glacial Hammer as the main damage skill for its 50% Phys-Cold conversion and the high chance to freeze. I would then convert the rest using Physical to Lightning to give a pure elemental hit. This allows us to take advantage of both Melee Phys scaling and Elemental Damage scaling on the passive tree.

This build takes advantage of all 3 Heralds, or 2 Heralds and Hatred, depending on your preference. The two key Heralds are Herald of Ice and Herald of Thunder. Herald of Ice has great AoE damage and will always be procced due to Glacial Hammer's high chance to freeze. Herald of Thunder will be procced constantly due to the high percentage of lightning damage and high crit chance, because of this we use it to apply our curses.

This build is still a work in progress and will change with my experiences and your feedback.

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Passive Tree (102 Points):

This passive tree is designed to pick up a good balance of Damage and Defence, without compromising either. It is possible to build this with less damage and more tank, and vice versa, depending on preference. The key places are the Serpent Stance cluster, the Disemboweling cluster, the Smashing Strikes/Whirling Barrier cluster. The trip down to the Duelist area to pick up Iron Reflexes is also very important as we will be wearing a significant amount of evasion gear.

Leveling Trees:

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Gear and Gems:

My Current Gear:


Maligaro's Virtuosity, Windscream and Rat's Nest are all fairly crucial to this build, as such I would recommend picking them up as and when you are able to. The only item this build struggles without is Windscream, as we want to be dual cursing. Other than that, gearing is fairly simple. You want to have a good amount of life and resists, and you want as much crit as you can get hold of without sacrificing too much tank (obviously in SC, if you don't mind dying, feel free to lean more to damage).

Gems:

Weapon and Chest links are listed in order of importance. All links are assumed to be at least 4 link.

Weapon:
Chest:
Alternative Chest (if Whispers of Doom taken/have another +1 Curse item):
Helmet:
Gloves:
Boots:

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Bandits:

Kill all! This build is very heavy on passive points. You can choose to take either the Endurance or Power charge in Merciless though.

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Screenshots and Videos:

Self Buffed Offence:

Defence is currently too low - in need of a replacement belt to get resists back up. Will share when I've fixed.
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Thanks for reading! I hope this build guide is of use to you, if you have any questions or suggestions, then I'll be happy to answer!